Budget funding call for Telford by MP Lucy Allan

Lucy Allan said many new towns were built at speed and are now in desperate need of funding to refresh ageing estates.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on New Towns, which is chaired by Ms Allan, has released a manifesto calling for more to be done to support England's new towns, such as Telford.

Ms Allan said: "The new towns are some of the fastest-growing and most successful communities in the UK and have enormous potential for future growth, but they are also facing significant regeneration challenges and are home to some of the most deprived communities.

“The new towns’ design and architecture and strong sense of civic pride make them unique and could prove to be catalysts in their renewal.

"However, as a result of building at speed – and, often under the constraints of the day, using cheap materials – whole estates are now in need of renewal, putting a significant burden on local authorities, while tired-looking buildings affect contemporary perceptions of what were once ambitious schemes.

“There is a significant opportunity to turn the challenges faced by the UK’s new towns into opportunities, which is why the APPG on New Towns has launched a manifesto and written to the Chancellor today.”

Powers given to local authorities should be changed in order to unlock the full potential of their areas, the APPG said.

They also called for a prospectus to be published setting out how the Government can support new towns – especially those with ambitious and innovative proposals.

The APPG sent their two page manifesto to Chancellor Philip Hammond.

The document also calls for new towns to be included in a Ministry of Housing minister’s list of key responsibilities to shine a national focus on those areas.

Kate Henderson, chief executive of the TCPA, which provides the secretariat for the APPG, said: “The post-war new towns programme was the most ambitious large-scale town-building programme ever undertaken in the UK, and today the new towns provide homes for over 2.8million people.

"Through our research we have found councils often lack the capacity and resources to unlock the potential of the existing new towns. For this reason, one of the APPG’s key asks of Government is a new towns prospectus setting out how they can support existing regeneration and growth through providing tailored Government support to local areas with ambitious and innovative proposals.

"This would include capacity funding for councils along the lines of the Government’s locally-led garden villages, towns and cities programme and has the potential to ensure the revitalisation of the existing new towns goes hand-in-hand with the Government’s support for a new generation of garden communities.”